I Am Joining Scout Labs

I am thrilled to announce that I am joining Scout Labs. As a natural born evangelist, this is what I consider the ultimate role: to promote a brilliant application that addresses companies’ needs to interpret online conversations, determine consumer sentiment and identify signals in the noise.

In my quest to find the this opportunity, I have focused on the caliber of people as much as what the company does. My goal all along has been to find a company whose product is as mind blowing as the people. If I am going to devote most of my waking hours to a company, I want to be as impressed by the people as the technology. After several dozen conferences, meetings and interviews and researching hundreds of people and companies, Scout Labs impresses me on both levels, but if it were not for a random offline encounter I may not have found this opportunity.

I met Mars Hall at my local coffee shop. I asked him what he was working on, and he explained that he is a developer for Scout Labs. He was kind enough to give me informal demo, and I probably drooled as we discussed the technology. Mars laughed because he does not meet many strangers at coffee shops who are fascinated by online brand monitoring or understand what sentiment analysis actually means. Our conversation was not limited to Scout Labs, however. Mars and I discussed yoga, hiking and his love of Austin, TX. In short, it was an opportunity get to know a member of the Scout Labs team from both a personal and professional perspective. Mars and I exchanged contact information, and shortly thereafter, Jennifer Zeszut, Scout Labs’ CEO, emailed me to meet for coffee.

It is ironic that offline interaction lead to an opportunity to join Scout Labs, a company that monitors online conversations. I am intrigued by online communication, and I spend a lot of time interacting online, but I continue to say over and over that it is impossible to replace real world interaction. For those of you who spend a lot of time online developing connections and interacting, don’t forget about about the local coffee shop, taqueria or happy hour. Don’t forget to show up.